Puritan Women in Literature - Patriarchal Communities

T. H. Matteson - The Scarlet Letter
Seventeenth and eighteenth century American literature inspired by Puritan ideals allows the reader insight into the lives of women in the patriarchal Puritan communities of that time.
European women perceived Puritan women to be pioneers and individuals who had acquired more freedom and more rights as citizens than themselves. Nevertheless, seventeenth and eighteenth century American literature,  reflects the rigid Calvinistic theology and model of community life within which Puritan women dwelled.
Through extracts from John Winthrop's "Journal" and “Model of Christian Charity," and selections from Anne Bradstreet's poems and Nathaniel Hawthorne's works, evidence  indicates Puritan society, a patriarchal society, subjugated women in order to preserve masculine authority.

Patriarchal Society Subjugates Puritan Women

To ensure daily Puritan life conformed to the rules and regulations of the bible, Calvinist leaders such as John Winthrop (1588-1649) based their social order upon covenants. When Winthrop presented his "Model of Christian Charity" to his community, besides their prosaic life style and hard work ethic, he envisioned a group of men and women working together for the common good, each one of whom knew his or her place in the social structure, and accepted their "'vengeful" God's predestination. So beset with the community's common goal of religious and political idealism, as noted in the Norton Anthology or American Literature, 1995, Winthrop prudently affirmed that "the care of the public over sway[ed] all private respects" (110) . Even though the leaders permitted individual prayer and granted the citizens autonomy to accomplish "good, just and honest" deeds (118), the decision of which lay at the hands of magistrates like Winthrop, little room remained for individualism within the rigid Puritan framework. For the Puritan, life was a complex, arduous struggle against sin.


Puritan Women Homemakers Provide Sanctuaries for Men

As citizens, women assumed religious and community duties. Winthrop states in his "Journal" in the Norton Anthology of American Literature that:
"A true wife accounts her subjection her honour and freedom, and would not think her condition safe and free, but in her subjection to her husband's authority. 
Such is the liberty of the church under the authority of Christ, her king and her husband" (118). Therefore, not only did women obligingly revere God, but were entirely subject to his command.
Although women were deemed inferior to men due to their cause of "Adam's fall," the community elders permitted them individual prayer. However, they denied them a voice in church and from entering the priesthood. 
As a result of their inferior religious status, the patriarchal Puritan community did not accredit women authoritative positions within the society. Even though they were occasionally granted property ownership, women neither attended, voted for, nor held office in a governing committee.
Women were, instead, employed in crafts and nurturing. In fact, the most common function for women was that of homemaker.Therefore, excluded from official community business, women invested themselves in their principal roles as homemakers and wives. Consequently, women were confined within the space of their homes and provided sanctuaries for their husbands who adopted roles outside the sphere of domesticity.

Women – Man's Companion and Compliment

Anderson and Zinsser in their book, A History of Their Own: Women in Europe From Pre-History To The Present (1989), note that Calvin declared that women were descendants of Eve formed from Adam's side and thus designed to be man's companion and complement (257-258). In her poem published in The Norton Anthology, "A Letter To Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment," Anne Bradstreet’s poetic words of love and respect for her husband, "Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, I here, thou there, yet both but one" (132, 25-6) mirror Calvin's doctrines.
According to Anderson & Zinsser, Calvin used the analogy that the man was the head, the women was the body and her principle obligation was to please her husband and to be always faithful (257-258). Anne Bradstreet confirms this claim in the aforementioned poem as she almost grieves her husband's absence. "My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn . . . In this dead time, alas, what can I more Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?" (11-14).

Marriage Keeps Women Subordinate

Although Anne Bradstreet shows true dedication and love in many of her poems, according to Calvin's ideology, it seems marriage was a mechanism with which to keep women subordinate and obedient.

Sources:

  • Anderson B.S. and J.P. Zinsser. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe From Pre-History To The Present: Volume II. New York: Harper Perennial, 1989.
  • The Norton Anthology of American Literature. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York, N.Y., 1995.

First published, Feb 22, 2011, by  Lesley Lanir on Suite101.com.
Copyright Lesley Lanir. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

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